Order of the Gauntlet

Back in June 2023 I led my group into the Giants' trilogy (G1-2-3 modules), but it started in a somehow different way inspired by a short fiction story called Return to the Steading by Bart Carroll that appeared online on Dragon+ magazine.

Even though the story was set in the Forgotten Realms, it could perfectly be applied to the World of Greyhawk.

"Commander Steeplejack had led the original raid against the steading, gathering other heroes from the Order of the Gauntlet. While some in his party had continued on, advancing their fight against frost giants and fire giants farther north, Steeplejack stayed to claim the steading for his own stronghold."

Based loosely on that part of the story I came up with an alternate start to the trilogy:

"A party of adventurers from the Order of the Gauntlet have recently attacked the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and, while the hill giants were fighting them, the orc and ogre slaves have turned on their bugbear and hill giant guardians. The adventurers inflicted huge casualties, slaying most of the giants and routing the rest (females and younglings, a couple of stone giants and a fire giant) but had to retreat due to heavy wounds and shortage of spells. Despite that, the raid was considered a success and their efforts were needed elsewhere. The ogres and orcs now control the place and, in a show of despise to the giants that had them enslaved, they have beheaded most of the corpses, setting their heads in pikes on the entrances to the steading."

Later on the story we can read:

"[...] recognized Gleep the Eyebiter, Cloyer the Magsman, and Roaky Swerked—all heroes from Steeplejack’s original party."

So, I ditched this Commander Steeplejack completely and had the Order founded by the original tournament characters that appeared in the G1 module.

• Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter (human, MU12)
• Cloyer Bulse the Magsman (human, T13)
• Roaky Swerked (human, C12)
• Frush O'Suggill (human, F14)
• Fonkin Hoddypeak (high elf, F5/MU8)
• Flerd Trantle (human, C9)
• Redmod Dumple (dwarf, F9)
• Faffle Dwe'o-mercraeft (human, MU9)
• Beek Gwenders of Croodle (half-elf, R9)

Then, I made them agents of the Kingdom of Keoland that operate mainly in the Earldom of Sterich and Duchy of Geoff, and to a lesser extent in the Gran March and the Yeomanry. There are chapters of the Order on each of the aforementioned realms to gather intelligence about the giants' activities and coordinate actions against them in the he Crystalmist, Jotens and Hellfurnaces.

Finally I created the Order's heraldry using CoaMaker.

The party came in contact with the first three members of the Order (Gleep, Cloyer and Roaky). Also had a new player character being a low rank member of it, that was held prisoner in the dungeons of the Hall of the Fire Giant King (G3) and rescued by the party.